Under Pressure
by Mad Server
Summary: The boys clean up after a hunt. Dean isn't feeling so hot.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Under Pressure  
Author: Mad Server  
Rating: T  
Characters: Dean, Sam  
Word Count: 1500  
Summary: The boys clean up after a hunt. Dean isn't feeling so hot.  
A/N: I had help from three amazing people for this one: i-speak-tongue and pdragon76, whose smart, thorough, and generous betas made this fic leaner and meaner; and SciFiRN, who broke down the medical mumbo-jumbo for me in fantastic detail.  
Disclaimer: I don't own these guys.

* * *

"You look like shit."

"Thanks." Dean spits onto the weedy lawn, straightens up.

"Let's bag 'em fast. This place gives me the creeps."

"What?" Dean dabs blood off his split lip with the back of his wrist, glances from window to window. There's not a single light on in any of the run-down houses that line this street. "Nobody saw. Let's just scram."

"Uh, do you want to see the apocalypse from inside a jail cell?"

Dean watches him fidget his grip on his machete. "You're such a pessimist, Sam." Light's glistening off the wet pavement, big city pollution bouncing off the clouds and tinting everything a dirty orange. It smells like wet sand, wet pavement, car exhaust, and piss.

"Cause me? I'd rather, I don't know, stop it from happening."

There's a big blind spot over Dean's right eye. He shakes his head but it doesn't budge. "Have it your way, you big downer."

The Impala's half a block back, hastily parked with her nose part-way up somebody's driveway. He starts toward her, and trips on one of the vampires' heads as it disappears into his visual black hole.

"You OK?" Sam asks.

"Never better."

They bag the bodies, stuff them in the back, and roll.

* * *

It smells like fish down at the pier. Fish and grease. Dean watches Sam tie pilfered cinder blocks to the bodies with the bugaboo-proof rope Dean spent two hours chanting over.

"I'll bless us a new one," Sam offers distractedly when he brings it up.

"I see any bugaboos between now and then," Dean warns, pointing through the empty place in his visual field, "I'm sending 'em your way."

The blank area isn't alone anymore. It's got some flashing lights for company. It's hard to see. And the weird thing is, Dean doesn't remember hitting his head.

He opens his mouth to ask Sam what it could be, but at that moment Sam finishes tying off the last cinder block, and requisitions his help. One by one, they drag the bodies to the water's edge, drop them in, and watch them disappear under the thick, creamy foam.

Dean's not feeling so confident in gravity all of a sudden. He takes a careful step back.

"You hit your head?" Sam asks him.

"Naw," says Dean, trying to find his face through the flashing lights and the blind spot.

"We need a doctor?"

"I'm good, Sam."

Sam's right. They need to cut town. And if there's something wrong with him, it's probably just the flu.

* * *

"Pull over."

The car lurches sideways, brakes screeching. Dean fumbles his door open, leans out, and pukes.

Yeah. Flu.

"Shit," says Sam. "C'mere, I want to look at you."

Dean wants to tell him it's the flu but he's too busy not vomiting again. It's three in the morning, give or take. It smells like wet leaves in the country, wet grass, his own barf.

He feels Sam's fingers warm at his throat, pressing into his carotid. Opening his eyes gives him the spins so he just keeps them shut, wishes the flashing lights would get the hint and leave. Sam murmurs, "Be right back," makes a godawful racket slamming the trunk shut, and then sinks back onto the seat beside Dean. Dean hears the first aid kit snapping open, and then Sam shines a flashlight in his eyes, which hurts more than it probably should. Warm hands run over his scalp, his ribcage, his belly.

"Tickles," Dean manages.

Sam nudges him forward and he drops his head onto his hands on the dashboard, shivers as Sam lifts up his shirts and runs a hand down his back, taps Dean's kidneys.

"It wasn't much of a fight," Dean breathes as Sam lowers his shirts, helps him find the seat again. He risks cracking an eye open, sees a funny look on Sam's face, like someone's just dumped a steaming cup of coffee on his laptop.

"Your wrist," Sam says. "It's bleeding."

"Oh," Dean says, when he doesn't elaborate.

Sam's quiet for a long moment. Then he blows a noisy breath out through his nose, rubs the cut with antibiotic cream, and bandages it up.

* * *

They've agreed to stop at the next motel, only, there hasn't been one. The map had shown a couple of towns up ahead, but one of them turned out to be about six farms and a church, the other only slightly bigger. Town #2 rates a general store at least, although at four in the morning, it's closed. No motel, nobody to ask for directions, no wireless.

They park at a fork in the road, trying to decide what to do. Dean's not soldiering it up anymore - he feels like shit, and he doesn't know why, and he wants to not feel like shit anymore. It's mostly just his head; light, noise, everything seems to hurt. The blind spot is gone, and he kind of misses it. He feels flushed, sweaty, but Sam tells him he doesn't have a fever and therefore, he doesn't have the flu.

The next big cities are five hours down one stretch of highway, three hours down the other. It's an hour and a half back to the city where they might be wanted for murder, but where there are motels and a hospital.

"You decide," says Sam.

"Gimme Door #2," Dean croaks stuffily. "And some Tylenol."

* * *

The next time they stop so Dean can puke, he lets Sam bundle him into the backseat afterwards. Sam slides his hands under Dean's arms and hoists him to his feet. Eyes squeezed shut, Dean grips Sam's shoulders and lets him guide him around the open car door with tiny, shuffling steps. It reeks of swamp, and a bird is singing at eardrum-bursting volume. He presses his face into Sam's chest to block out as much as he can. Even through the shivers and the vertigo, he's aware that Sam's heart is slamming double-time.

* * *

They catch up with the storm.

It's a problem.

Rain on the roof, thunder and lightning. Dean thought the pain was bad before. Now it's so much worse, and not only that, he's exhausted. Bundling his jacket around his head doesn't seem to help, just makes him feel hot and sick. He can hear himself moaning. He doesn't care.

He forces himself up in the seat, reaches desperately for Sam. Grabs his shoulder and feels him jump a good four inches. Sam guns it for the side of the highway, slams on the brakes, and the force throws Dean against the door. His head hits the window. It's all he can take.

The last thing he sees is Sam's face, pale in the overcast morning. He looks terrified.

* * *

"I had a migraine, and you thought I was a turning into a vampire?"

Dean's burrowed down into thin white sheets and misshapen foam pillows. He's tired, washed out, still not ready for anything as drastic as food; but the headache, finally, has lifted.

"You didn't know what was wrong either."

"Yeah, but... a vampire?"

Sam shrugs sheepishly, scratches the back of his head. He's at the table, drinking coffee.

Dean sniffs, pulls the sheet in tighter. "Why didn't you tie me up, then? I could've killed you."

Sam raises his hands. "I had it all worked out, OK? I was gonna get a trailer, and you were gonna live in it, and I was gonna pull you around with the Impala. Like on _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. I was gonna feed you blood from the butcher's and we were gonna live happily ever after."

"You didn't tie me up. You wanted me to kill you."

"I didn't believe you were really a vampire."

"You wanted me to kill you, so that you wouldn't have to kill me."

Sam's jaw drops. "I told you. The trailer."

"Now do you get why I need you to stop what you're doin' with Ruby?"

Sam flushes. A muscle in his jaw twitches. "Get some sleep," he says, and turns on his laptop.

* * *

end


	2. an earlier draft which was Sam's POV

_A/N: I wasn't planning to post this, but, here we are. It's the first draft of this fic. It's more or less the same story, only from Sam's POV. I like seeing migrainey Dean through his eyes, and I missed that in the final version._

* * *

They're more about digging stuff up, really. Burying it? It always seems a little backwards. But when it needs to happen, they're usually on the same page about it. Or. They used to be.

See, Sam is just, not going to jail. Not that he ever was really, but with all this heavenly warfare going on? It's so not the time. So when they decapitate three vamps right out in the street one night, crowded by townhouses full of potential witnesses, Sam circumvents the debate that would never have cropped up before Dean took his trip downstairs, and announces they're going to get rid of the bodies.

"What? Why?" Dean asks, still panting, dabbing blood off his split lip with the back of his hand. He gestures at the empty street. The pavement's bright with leftover rain, big city light pollution bouncing off the clouds and coming back a dirty orange. "Everybody's asleep. Let's just go."

Sam's stomach is in knots. "Look, I don't want to see the apocalypse from inside a jail cell. Rather not see it at all." His eyes are flicking from window to window.

"It's three in the morning," Dean whines. Sam levels a stare at him.

With a capitulating eyeroll, Dean staggers over to the Impala, pops the trunk and yanks out a handful of garbage bags. Underneath his relief Sam registers something else, disappointment maybe or disgust, at how Dean just doesn't seem to give a fuck anymore. "Their blood doesn't touch the seats," Dean warns, passing the bags to Sam, and at least there's _that_. Then Dean pulls a towel out of the trunk and uses it to wipe down first his face, then his machete. By the time he's done, Sam's already got one of the bodies bagged, and two of the heads.

With a groan, Dean crouches down stiffly, plucks the third head off the pavement and drops it into a bag. Moments later, mostly thanks to Sam, the three bodies are tightly wrapped and stashed in the back seat.

In the driver's seat Dean starts the engine, then hesitates, fussing with the windshield wipers and sniffing absently.

"River," Sam says, a bit more sharply than he means to. "We just need something to weigh 'em down."

"I know," Dean admonishes, but peers out at the street as though trying to decide which way to turn.

"Left," says Sam, his leg bobbing up and down. "There was a construction site a few blocks back."

Dean gives him a surly glance, then wipes a hand over his eyes, blinks hard a couple times, shakes his head and pulls away from the curb.

It's a quick stop, engine muttering. Sam shimmies in between two sheets of chain link fence, losing a button off his shirt in the process. He finds some cinder blocks stacked under a blue tarp, takes what he needs and pushes them out through the fence, one by one. When he starts stacking them in the wheel well, Dean eyeballs them blankly, his face pale in the overhead light.

"What's up?" Sam asks him.

"Nothing," Dean shrugs, and pulls out again. Sam's not buying it, but there'll be time enough to check him over once they've got these bodies ditched and a good few miles behind them. And possibly different license plates.

Down at the pier, it's all concrete and grease and the stench of fish, the roar of water. Sam pops the trunk and brings out a coil of rope. He leans into the backseat and starts attaching cinder blocks to the bagged corpses.

"No no no no no," says Dean, suddenly animated, snapping around in his seat. "Do you know how long I chanted over that rope?"

"I'll bless us a new one," Sam offers.

Dean huffs, not appeased. He points at Sam. "I see any bugaboos between now and then, I'm sending 'em your way."

Sam just keeps tying. "Gimme a hand with these," he says when he's done. He watches Dean push up stiffly out of the car, sees him waver unsteadily before he straightens and comes around back to take this body's other end, squinting against the weak streetlights.

"You hit your head?" The garbage bags are slippery in their arms, and the corpse is heavy. Dean's watching his footing, and Sam's watching Dean.

"No, did you?" Dean says without looking up.

At water's edge they stop, drop the body in and watch it disappear under the sick, creamy foam. They dump the other two the same way, and as the last one hits the waves Sam starts breathing easier. The bodies might still be found, but at least now there's some time on the clock.

He turns to Dean in the moonlight, sees him blinking too often and teetering just a little. Sam frowns. "Let me drive."

Four seconds go by, five. Then Dean pulls the car key out of his pocket, rubs his thumb over it moodily, and tosses it to Sam.

His car, and his pride: Dean still cares about two things at least.

* * *

It's been about half an hour since the pier, and Sam's putting away the miles when he hears a loud grunt from the passenger's seat. He glances over automatically, not sure what he's expecting but not expecting this: Dean's got his eyes squeezed shut, and he's digging the heel of his hand into his right temple. Maybe it's just the bad highway lighting, but his skin looks slightly green.

"Hey," says Sam. "You OK?"

Dean hesitates. "Don't feel so good," he rasps, not opening his eyes.

"Yeah, you don't look so good," says Sam, suddenly very alert, not sure how to gage the gravity of what he's seeing.

"Pull over," Dean grates, rubbing his forehead and settling his palm over his eyelids.

Tires screech and the passenger door bursts open. Dean leans out and pukes onto the gravel. Sam scoots toward him, drops an uncertain hand onto the dashboard beside him.

Shivering, Dean spits, drags himself upright and closes the door.

They're far enough outside the city limits now that Sam's thinking about the check-over he never gave Dean. "Let me have a look at you," he says.

Dean's got his head tilted back, resting on the seat back; eyes closed, he's pulling his jacket tighter against himself. Sam takes his weary grunt as permission.

Dizziness, headache, vomiting, sensitivity to light. It's got to be a concussion, right? But there's no blood leaking from Dean's ears or his nose, and his warm scalp doesn't give up any gash or goose egg to Sam's probing hands. An internal injury then? Sam doesn't give himself time to think about that one, just sends his hands roaming over Dean's abdomen. He pries his way inside the jacket, which earns him a watered-down glare and a soft cough that's probably supposed to be a huff. Dean shivers plenty, but doesn't flinch at his palpitations.

"Sit up," Sam directs. Sluggishly, Dean complies, dropping his forehead onto his hands on the dashboard. Sam taps his kidneys, and the lack of reaction on Dean's part tells him that they're not the problem.

Could it be the flu? Sam's starting to feel the pressure of the clock again as he nudges Dean's shoulder back, helps him find the seat. Dean throws him a slitted glance and then settles, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Dean's cheeks are sweaty to Sam's touch, and maybe a little warmer than they should be, but definitely not blazing. And it can't be that he's drunk or hungover or some gross combination thereof, Sam reflects, if for no other reason than that he would have smelled the alcohol by now.

"How 'bout if we find someplace to crash," Dean husks, breaking into his thoughts. "Unless you wanted to spoon first. 'Cause baby, I'm ready."

* * *

There's nowhere to crash. Nowhere. They're on a dead stretch of highway, the big city behind them and a couple of "towns" up ahead, according to the map, although when they get there one of them turns out to be about six farmhouses and a church. The other one's big enough to have a main drag with a general store on it, but nothing else. The general store is closed, it being somewhere in the vicinity of four in the morning, and although Town #2 is perched on a fork in the highway, there's nobody to ask which branch of the highway will lead more directly to a bed. The next decent-sized cities look to be a three-hour drive in one direction, a five-hour drive in the other. There's no wireless reception so Sam can't just google it, and he's not taking them back where they came from, not unless it's pretty damn urgent. The road is discouragingly narrow and ill-maintained in both directions. Wet, too; that, and the occasional flash of lightning up ahead, tells Sam they're trailing behind a storm, presumably the same one that's just drenched the big city.

They're parked at the crossroads. Sam rakes his eyes over Dean, who's hunched forward now with his elbows on his knees, fingers covering his eyes and thumbs plugging his ears. Sam's stomach is sour. He raises his voice a little so Dean will hear him even with his ears blocked.

"You need a hospital, man, now's the time to say."

Dean twitches, swallows something back. "Keep it down," he murmurs at the car floor.

Sam kind of hopes Dean is playing it up a little, but just in case, he keeps his voice deferentially low as he says, "So, do you have any idea what's wrong with you?"

"Nope."

"You sure the vamps didn't do anything?" Sam means did they bash you on the head without leaving a mark somehow, did they nail you really hard in the belly or the crotch or the kidneys or somewhere else that counts and you're keeping it from me. But once the words are out of his mouth, a much bleaker possibility occurs to him.

"Nothing," Dean snaps hoarsely, sounding frustrated and exhausted.

Sam's mouth is suddenly dry, his heart tripping in his chest as he cranes and dips his head to steal a good look at Dean's neck. Gingerly, he reaches forward and peels back the soft blue collar of Dean's jacket. Nothing.

What's the next-tastiest spot, if you're a vampire? Sam's money's on the wrist. He has to go on touch for this, because Dean's hands are still blocking out all possible sensory data.

On the second wrist, Dean flinches. Sam's hand comes away bloody.

There's a moment where Sam's whole theoretical future rearranges itself. His hands feel funny.

"Hey," Sam hears himself say. "How'd you get cut?"

"Claws," Dean sighs shakily. If he's following Sam's thought pattern, there's absolutely no sign of it.

"You bleeding anywhere else?"

"I don't know. No."

_Yeah, and I'm so taking your word for it,_ Sam thinks as he pats down Dean's legs and his other arm.

He doesn't find another cut, which rules out hypovolemic shock as the cause of their troubles, and leaves him with this: Dean's suddenly and mysteriously not feeling so hot after a run-in with some vamps during which they broke his skin; they've got nowhere to hole up; and there's no doctor to be had, except back the way they came, where the police might be after them for murder even now.

Sometimes Sam hates his life.

He bandages Dean's wrist, picks the direction with a city three hours away, and guns it toward the storm.

* * *

An hour goes by, and still no town. The puddles on the road are getting deeper, and the fields have given way to swamp: tall, thin trees with no branches, scraggly bushes, fallen logs crisscrossing in the water. The world's brightening, grey clouds getting paler, reflecting dimly in the swamp.

Dean just looks worse. Tylenol out of the first aid kit doesn't seem to have helped him much and he's curled awkwardly, half on his side, against the door. He's got the heels of his hands pressing into his eyes, his middle fingertips plugging his ears. It looks uncomfortable to say the least. He shifts now, like maybe he's trying to turn over, and mutters something unintelligible.

"Dean," Sam murmurs.

"Hnhh." He's so pasty, his skin a shiny blank.

"Maybe you should lie down in the back."

"Hm."

Not that Sam is so keen on having his possibly bloodthirsty brother back where he can't see him, but the more he denies that that might be what's happening, the more it won't happen, right?

As gently as he can, Sam eases the car onto the shoulder, then puts her into park. He circles warily around front, pries Dean's door open with measured slowness as Dean shifts his weight off the door, and steels himself against a possible jack-in-the-box of fanged, murderous brother.

Dean's docile though, and compliant, rotating readily towards Sam. He drops his hands away from his face and fumbles for Sam's shoulders, his eyes still scrunched up tight. Green again, he presses his forehead into Sam's chest, lets Sam guide him up and onto his feet, out of the car, through the damp, chill night air with small, stumbling steps, and finally into the backseat. Sam's heart thumps double-time the entire time, his brother's face mere inches from his neck.

"Sam," Dean pants from the backseat of the car, and it takes a second before Sam realizes what's happening and helps his brother lean forward, out over the pavement. There wasn't much left in Dean's stomach, so it isn't long before he's collapsing back onto the bench seat, sniffling and wiping his mouth and his eyes with shaky hands.

"I'm sorry," is all Sam can think to say.

* * *

The sun's up, the tumultuous sky as bright as it's going to get, when Sam spots something up ahead: a gas station. Absurdly relieved, he slows down as they get closer, pulls in, even though they don't need gas, don't need directions anymore. Dean's asleep in the back, or else feigning sleep to lull Sam into a false sense of security and then drink his blood.

Quietly, carefully, Sam pops opens the driver's door. He gets out, stretches with one eye on his passenger, ambles over and tugs on the gas station door.

It's locked.

He scrubs his hands over his face, lets out a shaky sigh. Kicks at the wet gravel.

The suspense is getting to be a problem.

Dean hasn't gone for his jugular yet, but maybe it's just a matter of time. Either it's a matter of time, or Sam's life can stay good.

Well. Relatively good.

Because if Dean is changing in there, then Sam's going to have to kill him. Or. What did they do in _Buffy the Vampire Slayer?_ Keep him chained up somewhere. Feed him blood from the butcher's. They'll have to stay put in one spot. Or buy a trailer. Dean can live in the trailer and Sam can pull him along with the Impala wherever he goes. Until the world ends. Or until Sam stops that from happening. By whatever means necessary.

Maybe they can become supervillains together, after the world is safe. The demon and the vampire. Feasting on the innocent and not remembering any better. Compared to Lilith and her buddies, how bad can the two of them be?

Sam makes his way back to the car; looks down at Dean through the rear window. He sees him shift groggily, draw a leather-clad arm over his face to block the weak, cloud-filtered sunlight. Dean's looking paler all the time.

* * *

When they catch up with the storm, things get weird.

Rain pattering at first and then really drumming on the car roof sends Dean into a sick, lethargic frenzy. He starts gasping in the backseat; turns onto his stomach, tries desperately to wedge his head into the corner where the seatbelt clasp disappears.

"Whoa, hey, easy there," Sam says nervously.

Lightning flashes across the sky and Dean whimpers; then thunder, and he sits bolt upright, his hands dropping away from his head, eyes locking onto Sam's in the rearview mirror. He's bone white, his skin damp, eyes a bloodshot mess except for their brilliant green centres, and is it Sam's imagination or are they darker now than they're supposed to be? Dean's mouth opens, and this is it, this is where Sam's going to see the fangs and his life will be over, either literally if he doesn't fight back, or figuratively if he does.

There are no fangs.

Dean wilts; his bloodshot eyes roll back in his head; he falls back against the seat in a dead faint.

Sam pulls over; pokes around inside his mouth just to be sure.

* * *

There are plenty of good reasons why Sam didn't think of it earlier, first and foremost being the fact that Dean has never had one before; but still, as soon as he sees the billboard for migraine medication, Sam feels like a bit of a dipshit.

They finally, finally come to a town. Get a room. Straggle in.

A package of crackers from the vending machine; two more Tylenols. It takes Dean a solid ten minutes to get it all down, whisper-griping about the noise from the plastic wrapper. But it stays down. He wraps himself around a pillow and presses his face against the mattress. His breathing gets slow and deep. Sam doesn't budge again.

* * *

Just as it's setting, the sun finds an opening in the cloud-choked sky, and shines a feverish red light into the motel room.

Dean's tired, washed out, still won't eat; but the pain lines are gone from his face, and he can say more than three words at a time. He's burrowed down into thin white sheets and misshapen foam pillows, a bland floral bedspread; he doesn't look like he'll be coming out any time soon.

"How about if we never do that again," Dean croaks.

"Yeah," Sam sighs, "count me in." He's playing solitaire at the table, the cards slippery in his hands, their backs a waxy navy blue.

"I mean, next time you want to play dentist," Dean goes on, "at least wash your hands first."

Sam drops his head to his folded arms, and laughs.

* * *

end


End file.
